


Guardian Devil Protect Me Now

by Darke_Eco_Freak



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: 5 times someone saw the devil in the murdock boy, Gen, Maybe - Freeform, Or not, actual demon Matthew Murdock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 04:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10506324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darke_Eco_Freak/pseuds/Darke_Eco_Freak
Summary: Matthew Michael Murdock; a God Fearing Catholic boy. He goes to church, he goes to confession, he knows his priest and does what good he can. Matthew Murdock; an excellent lawyer, compassionate and ruthless. Matt Murdock; Devil's of Hell's Kitchen in more than name.





	

Father Lantom has been an ordained priest for decades, he’s seen a lot of grief in all that time and a lot of good too. He believes in his God and he believes in his faith, he tries his hardest to be the good he wants to see in the world and he thinks he does an okay enough job. Then Matthew Murdock joins his church and his life takes a turn for the…strange. Matthew is the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, Lantom knows that much even if the boy won’t come right out and say it. Matthew’s confessions are much too dark to be a simple lawyer fighting for the innocent, his confessions talk too much of forgiveness and repentance to be a careless blind man.

Matthew Murdock tells him a story about his grandmother and the ‘Devil in the Murdock Boys’ and for a long, long time Lantom thinks it’s a metaphor, a family story. He’s heard about Battling Jack Murdock, he’s a kitchen boy himself and even though he wasn’t around when Jack was alive, he knows the story. The older women in his congregation always whisper about him whenever Matthew shows up for Mass which is never every single week.

Lantom has heard about the Murdock Devil for so long he’s convinced it’s just an aggressive streak in the Murdocks. They can take a punch and they all teach their children how to take one too, they all have an anger in them and they show their children how to direct it. He would offer counselling but he doesn’t think Matthew would accept, Matthew barely accepts coffee and only when he’s dead on his feet. There are a few priests Lantom knows who would love Matthew and his self-flagellating streak, or maybe not, he’s sure they’d have something to say about him dressing like a devil and beating criminals senseless every other night.

The Murdocks have a lot of streaks and Lantom thinks he knows about all of them; mean streaks, self-flagellating streaks, self-denial, possibly a genetic pre-disposition for depression. He’s pretty sure the last one is a combination of genetics and environmental factors but again, he can’t be sure since he only has a focus group of one to base his assumptions on but from what he’s heard he doesn’t think he’s wrong. So when Matthew shows up in the church just before seven on a Saturday night in full devil regalia, Lantom isn’t as shocked as he should be.

“A flare for the dramatic?” he asks quietly when Matthew drops down from the roof to one of the front pews. The press have never gotten a clear picture of their guardian devil; blurred figures jumping across rooftops, dark figures in a group of other dark figures. Sure sometimes they get something in focus, the helmet most often with the horns that every person and their grandmother has an opinion on. Lantom has never cared to pass judgement, never been particularly keen on whatever uniform Matthew dons night after night but now he doesn’t believe he has a choice.

“That’s what I’ve been told, Father,” Matthew murmurs, voice pitched lower than usual, rougher than usual and Lantom understands why criminals have learnt to fear this man. The light filtering down from the roof is sparse but it’s enough to catch the red in the suit and yes, there are the horns on the helmet. Lantom almost doesn’t believe this is Matthew standing before him, shoulders up, head tilted and he assumes the dark smudge at the corners of his mouth is blood.

“Sister Bernice would approve, she likes theatrics,” Lantom comments because he doesn’t know what else to say. He knows Matthew would never hurt him but he still feels uneasy, there’s a strange tension in the air, something dark and he feels the urge to clutch at his rosary. Then Matthew tilts his head the other direction and his face is fully in the light; definitely blood on the corners of his mouth but it doesn’t look like his own.

“There’s a man, he tried to break to hide from the police, he had a gun Father,” Matthew says, growling the word gun and it has to be the lighting because Matthew doesn’t have fangs, no one does.

“He was planning on using you as a hostage if the police caught up to him,” the masked man continues and his voice drops lower, more of a growl and some of the words are garbled together. Lantom sees the sharp teeth flashing in the light, white against the bloody smears and flushed lower half of Matthew’s face, but it has to be a trick of the light; men don’t have animal teeth.

“I knocked him out and tied him up with his own zip ties,” Matthew-no, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen explains and Lantom feels like he needs to make that distinction, “you should call the police.”

He should, he should check on the man tied up outside his church then he should call the police and tell them about the citizen’s arrest. There are lots of things Lantom should do, according to his faith and the laws that Matthew’s sworn himself to, there are things he should have done months ago and then there are the things he will do now. He nods at Matthew even though he doubts the boy can sense it, enhanced senses or devil’s own guile don’t make up for the loss of his eyes that much Lantom knows. However, a nod is the most he can give to this particular devil, protector of the church as it were, and then the privacy to escape into the night.

When the police arrive, the man is shivering and crying. There’s blood on his shirt, not his own but it doesn’t belong to the man who tied him up. The gun is in pieces next to him but the important parts, the ones with fingerprints are perfectly intact and Lantom wonders at his own morality as the man is carted away by the police. He blessed a devil tonight, in action if not in words and wonders if any other priests have had to deal with situations like this before. He doubts there’s a counselling group.

* * *

His name is Veniamin and he is twenty, he has no one in this city and he has no other work. He wants better for himself than running with criminals and stealing from people but he has nothing else, no one to help him and no one to turn to. He is lucky the most he does is drive the taxis, drop off men, pick them up, distribute the drugs in the trunk and if he does his job well, he never has to get involved.

Tonight is not a good night, tonight he has to get involved because someone does not want to pay and he has to make them. He would prefer not to but the tire iron is a familiar weight in his hand and the smell of piss is too. The druggie is pale, eyes bright and wide and full of fear and Veniamin does not want to do this but if he does not collect the money he does not get paid and he has no other choice.

“Please,” the man whines, backed against the wall, one hand reaching towards Veniamin and he feels his heart ache in his chest. He is no killer, no mob man, but he does have a job and god forgive him but he wants to do it well. He’s lifting the tire iron when he hears someone else at the entrance of the alley, hears the footsteps but they are out of sync and they are spaced too far apart.

“Veniamin.”

His own eyes go wide and he whirls around, searching for the stranger who knows his name and finding nothing but, but, but the alley is dark and the only light is from the street behind them. He whirls around and the man is being paid to beat has slid down the wall until he is sitting on the grimy floor and clutches his knees to his chest like a child. Veniamin wishes he could do the same but he can’t, instead he looks around the alley for the voice and finds nothing again.

“Please!” the man cries and his voice is raw, it breaks during the short word and the footsteps are back. Veniamin swallows hard and swings the tire iron in a circle around his body, hoping to keep whatever it is away from him because he thinks…he thinks he knows what this is.

“Veniamin, you don’t have to fight.”

And oh the voice is so compelling, soothing, he wants nothing better than to make the creature the voice belongs to happy. He wants to drop his weapon and run back to his cab but he cannot, god help him but he cannot run. No one can run from the devil.

“Yes you can, I don’t want to hurt you.”

And he could believe the voice, the quiet, gentle voice like an angel of reason. He swings the iron again, breathing hard and fast as his heart pounds in his chest and he looks again and again. His eyes sweep from the mouth of the alley to the gate he cornered the junkie against, there is nothing there and there are no fire escapes for the devil to scramble up or down. Veniamin looks to the rooftops but they are too high above him, too far away for the voice to be coming from and he did hear footsteps.

“I don’t need fire escapes, Veniamin. You know what I am.”

And he does, oh he does. He has heard the others speaking of this creature, muttering about the ‘man in the mask’ but whispering about the ‘devil of hell’s kitchen’. The devil knows your name because he has come to collect your soul, he knows what you think because nothing is safe from him, he can charm your blood from your veins and the marrow from your bones so do not listen to him. Easier said, always easier said, because Veniamin wants to listen, he wants to hear more of the soft voice that offers him help.

“Put it down and I’ll let you walk out of this alley with all of your teeth.”

The voice dips, grating and harsh and he whimpers as he steps back, no, no, no!

“Please,” he whispers and the irony is not lost on him, the junkie rocks against the wall and Veniamin is begging the devil for mercy. Deep down he knows he doesn’t deserve it but he wants it, God above he wants it but there is no God, only the devil come to collect his due.

“Please,” he begs as the iron slips from his numb fingers, clatters on the ground so loud that he swears he can see the sound bouncing between the alley walls. He doesn’t hear the footsteps again and he should have realised that deals with the devil were not happy stories, when the hand closes over his mouth, he doesn’t even try to scream.

“No, no shhh, no screaming,” the devil whispers and the burning hot breath washes the side of his face and Veniamin can feel the tears well in his eyes.

“Good, now tell me, where do you get the drugs?”

Veniamin walks out of the alley on trembling legs, he makes it as far as his cab before he’s hunched over vomiting and shaking and sobbing all at once. He is alive though, even though the Devil held him by the face and breathed down his neck, he is alive.

* * *

She should’ve realised sooner that there was something off about Matt Murdock, beyond the super senses and the ninja-ing and all the other bullshit. She was his doctor, she should know more about his body than anyone else but here she is, months into this bullshit and only just realising something else that’s unsettling.

“Why don’t you have more scars?” she asks when she’s finally done sewing his stomach back together and god, not something she ever thought she’d have to do outside of the ER. Not something she ever thought she’d have to do on a ratty couch stained with her patient’s blood while a billboard flashed travel advertisements at her. Claire’s life is stranger than any fiction and she’s not even the one dressing up like the devil and running around punching people in the face.

“I heal well,” Matt grunts, or tries not to wince as he stretches and grunts instead because even his pain tolerance isn’t that insane. She should drop it, take him at face value for once and just head home before any of this got any weirder but…

But she’s running on three cups of coffee and it’s not even five and she thinks she deserves an answer all she’s done for him. She’s taken days off work for this asshole and missed sleep and she’s been kidnapped because of him. She deserves an answer to a question that directly impacts her usefulness to him even though he’d say she’s more than just his nurse as if that makes it any better.

“Uh huh, so where’s the scar from the stab wound I stitched up the first time we met? I mean, I know you’re a ninja and all but it went to the bone Matt, it should’ve left a scar,” she sighs but it hadn’t. She’d had to deal with another stabbing to the other leg just the other night because even with his new armour, Matt still managed to get hurt and she hadn’t seen the scar from the first one. Sure she’d been busy trying to stop the bleeding but afterwards, she’d looked and she’d looked again, she even felt the place with her fingers and nothing.

She knows he scars, she has the evidence right in front of her face but it’s inconsistent; she’s no lawyer but she’s pretty sure evidence like this wouldn’t stand up in court. And maybe that’s how he plans to deflect when he inevitably gets hauled in by the police, “sorry office, I can’t be the guy even though I’m wearing his suit and you found me beating on three people. The guy you’re looking for has way more scars than I do, I’m just ruggedly scarred.” Yeah she can see that going over so well in court.

“Sometimes things just…don’t. I don’t know why, my dad didn’t scar either,” Matt adds and she thinks he’s deflecting, talk about his dead dad so she’ll feel bad and leave it alone but Claire’s done feeling bad for Matty Murdock. He’s tougher than this and she’s going to push and push until he pushes back or he yields because he sure as hell isn’t going to break.

“Especially after a big fight. He’d be all busted up and bruised and it’d last all week by but the next month, there’d be nothing,” Matt sighs and Claire knows even if he could, he wouldn’t meet her eyes. He’s staring out past her, eyes unfocused as ever but there’s something strong burning behind them and when the flashing lights of the billboard reflect strange, she almost sees it. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, sprawled off on his own couch and she’s kneeling on front of him to get a better look at the place where some dick head’s knife got in between the plates of his fancy new suit.

His glasses are off and Claire can see his eyes, his hazel, green, brown eyes and she always thought it was some kind of joke when people said their eyes changed colour. She still thinks it’s a load of bullshit, it’s based on surrounding colours and the light filtering through but right now she forgets it. When the billboard flashes red, bathing Matty Murdock’s room in blood, she flinches but he doesn’t, he stares out with blood tinged eyes and looks every inch the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

The light feels like it lasts hours, catching on the bulge of his muscles, throwing the scars he has left into sharp relief and showing off a solider, a warrior who gives everything to protect his city. Claire stares and stares, she can’t take her eyes away-off? She can’t tear her eyes away from Matt and she wonders if he can feel her eyes burning holes into him, if his abilities let him sense things like that.

 “You should go home, Claire,” he says as the light switches, washing cold blue over him and stealing whatever moment there was. She feels exhausted, she is exhausted because there’ve been budget cuts at the hospital and more people coming in ever since the Devil took to the streets and Fisk got off them. She’s overworked and underpaid and tired but she can’t stop thinking about the mystery that is Matty Murdock

If she told her mother, her mother would say she was cursed and needed to be blessed and for once she doesn’t scoff at the idea. She’s running around to save the life of a man who pretends to be Satan, or Lucifer or whatever Matt’s religion wants to say. Claire doesn’t think she’s cursed though, not entirely at least because no one’s died on her watch yet and no one’s been caught by the cops, even though she did help torture a man.

“Take those antibiotics,” she orders though she knows he won’t, not until he feels something off with his body and she always worries that it might be too late by then. She doesn’t say it though, she’s too tired for that fight tonight.

“Good night,” Matt says as she leaves and she wonders how far he can hear, if he hears her whispering a prayer under her breath even though she hasn’t said them since she was young. She wonders if his freaky powers tell him that she’s praying for him.

* * *

Marci Stahl is not a woman who settles, she has goals and ideals and she has plans to make them hers. Marci Stahl is not the type of woman to go walking anywhere when there’s Uber or when she can call a cab or when she has a car of her own. Marci Stahl is the woman who gets caught walking through Hell’s Kitchen somehow or the other at twelve in the night because of some asshole’s mistake and her car needing servicing.  

She likes her new job at Hogarth’s, she likes the respect and the way Hogarth treats her like an equal though there’s a level of snark there that Marci can admire. She likes her salary and likes that she’s not working for shady, corrupt people anymore and she’s confident Foggy would tell her if Hogarth was shady too. She also likes that Hogarth’s is close to her apartment, the drive over never takes more than fifteen minutes but walking is a different story.

Honestly, she doesn’t know why she’s walking, she could’ve waited a little longer in her office for a driver to show up but no. The summer night is cool and she wants to walk, she does cardio every day, runs for a half hour but there’s something different about actually walking around so that’s what she’s doing now. Walking is what she’s doing when she hears a scream and wow, a scream in Hell’s Kitchen, must be her lucky night.

Her grip tightens on her bag and she starts walking faster, heels clicking loudly on the pavement as she tries to get out of the kitchen. She should help right? But what if it’s not some innocent schmuck getting robbed? What if it’s two gangsters beating on each other? What if she stumbles across some kind of drug exchange and gets herself caught up in the middle of it?

There’s another scream, louder but less shrill and she’s digging through her bag for her phone, she can call it in anonymously and the police can deal with whatever the hell is going down in the alley. She’s fumbling the numbers when someone walks out of the alley, right between two lampposts so she can’t get a good look at them but she can tell they’re looking at her.

“Who the fuck,” she mutters, swallowing hard when the person twitches and one of the streetlights goes out and okay, okay no. Marci is not about to be murdered by whoever or whatever the fuck this is and she starts backing up, she’s still fumbling with her phone but her fingers are clammy with sweat and she can’t get the numbers she wants. She keeps going back to Foggy’s contact and she doesn’t need Foggy right now, she’s the police and something to protect herself with.

The person twitches again and the other light goes out and for a split second, the tiniest little piece of time between the light and the sudden darkness, she swears she sees something big and dark spreading out from the figure. Then there’s a gust of wind so strong it nearly knocks her off her feet and the lights are back on but there’s no one there. There’s nothing there actually, not even a shadow between the two lights and she’s sure the streetlights weren’t that bright before they went out.

“Marci?” and when she looks down, she realises she called Foggy. She brings the phone to her ear but she’s shaking, trembling and she doesn’t think she can walk the rest of the way home and she doesn’t want to look in the ally to see what’s there.

“Marci are you okay?” and she can hear him shuffling around, doing things, maybe still in his office which…which is two blocks away from where she is.

“Foggy? I uh, I’m next to Pete’s and I-can you come meet me?” She’s trying for casual but it comes out shaky and a little too breathy and she things of wings for some reason. Huge, black wings made out of shadows and smoke, superimposed onto a person sized figure. She looks at the distance between the streetlights and god it would be a massive wingspan to hit both of tho-what the fuck is she thinking?

“Are you okay? What are you doing there? Hold on, I’ll come meet you.”

She couldn’t move if she tried, she’s barely standing on her own two feet and she feels jittery, shivering like there are eyes on her but the street is deserted so there can’t be. She takes a step to her left and then another and another until she’s leaning against Pete’s Pizzeria which is closed for the night. Actually, why is it closed? This is New York, and even in the Kitchen places didn’t close until at least two but someone had just _screamed_ next to this place so many crime was worse.

“Marce, what are you doing here? Didn’t you hear about the new gang trying to set up shop?” Foggy sighs when he finds her not ten minutes later and maybe he wasn’t at the office. He’s not wearing his suit and she feels a little bad about calling him, just a little mind you.

“Thank you for coming Foggy Bear,” she says and she’s genuine, as genuine as she can be. Foggy really is too nice to be a cut throat lawyer, at least most of the time.

“C’mon, let’s get out of here before the idiots come out,” Foggy mutters, taking her by the arm and tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow. She doesn’t say anything about how he’s leading her the same way he does Matt but she files the thought away for later.

“Something tells me they won’t be showing tonight,” she murmurs under her breath and she fights the urge to look behind her, to see where the person was. She doesn’t think about the…wings, wherever that idea came from, and she doesn’t want to think about the screaming.

“So how’s work been Foggy Bear?”

* * *

Stick has…seen some shit in his life. He works for a clandestine organization that works to keep unkillable soldiers from taking over the world, normal is relative. He’s met some interesting people in his line of work, some less than human, some not human, he’s used to being least impressive person in the room. When he meets Matty, he’s not surprised; caught off guard but not surprised.

“C’mon Matty, guard up,” he orders when the kid hits the floor again. Stick’s never met one of these, they’re not that common after all but he wonders why this one is here. The new world isn’t exactly the best place to go on a rampage these days but it’s none of his business. If he can get this one, Stick’ll be able to pick his next assignment no problem and he wants somewhere nice and warm.

+++

A little shy of twenty years and Stick understands why this one is in the new world. Matty’s building a hell of a reputation for himself and no, the irony isn’t lost on Stick. He’s seen the kid fight these days and wonders if Matty even realises what’s going on, why he can heal so fast or how he makes some of those jumps that are impossible for other people; normal people.

Stick wonders if Matty realises not every student would’ve been able to retain those skills learnt in a single year with no instruction afterwards. Sure Matty’s been visiting that shitty old gym but a punching bag’s no stand in for a proper instructor and Matty’s only gotten better in the time Stick has been away. Does the kid even realise that not everyone likes the taste of blood or can figure out people’s darkest secrets with a little listening? Probably not; kid’s always been a little dense.

“You need to know why I’m hurting you, it’s because I enjoy it.”

Matty can survive multiple stabbings, he can survive with broken bones and continue on like it’s nothing, he says Catholicism, Stick wants to introduce Matty’s head to a nice hard concrete floor. There ain’t enough faith in the world to make anyone power through a nicked carotid, not enough fear or respect either which is a shame because he’s lost some loyal bastards over the years.

“This is _my_ city.”

The territorial streak might be the biggest tip off, usually they go for more land than ten blocks in lower Manhattan but these are modern times after all besides Matty looks like he’s having fun micromanaging the shit out of this place. Cracking skulls every other night, getting a kick out of cleaning up the streets and putting the sinners in hospital beds, or body bags if they don’t make it through the night. Does this kid think getting a kick out of…well no, that would be normal for once, there’s the thrill of the fight and all that to get the blood racing and then the satisfaction from winning.

Or well, the kid can’t think the devil symbolism came natural. A man dressed up in all black and beating up people in a place called Hell’s Kitchen might have a 50-50 of being called the devil of the kitchen. Anyone else could have just as easily gotten some other stupid name and rolled with it, they wouldn’t have turned into Daredevil but Matty, well, Matty’s always had better odds. Hell, Stick doesn’t think Matty would’ve let them give him another name once he got the idea into his head. He thinks he’s being a ‘symbol’, Stick thinks his head is pretty far up his own ass.

“Don’t lie to me, I’ll know.”

Stick wonders what Matty makes of the tingly feeling whenever he sets foot on hallowed ground, if he thinks it’s the ‘spirit of the lord’ or some other nonsense. He wonders how Matty can be friends with a priest of all people without feeling the shivers claw up his back and the wrongness sink into his bones. Oh well, not his problem. If Matty wants to think the Murdock Devil is just a saying then it ain’t his place to set the kid straight.

“I can smell the fear on you, now tell me what I need to know and maybe I’ll let you walk out of here with just one broken bone.”

Stick snorts as he listens to the recordings, he’s had to pull quite a few strings to get them but he has them now and he’s living his best life. The kid would’ve been one hell of a soldier but Stick knows there’s time for that, especially since the Hand are moving in on the kid’s territory.

“Horns, Matty? A little on the nose, dotcha think?” he mumbles into his beer as he listens to Matty interrogate about drug dealer. He’s heard about the costume and he really wonders where Matty gets these ideas in his horned head. Stupid kid, thinks he takes off the helmet and the Devil bleeds into the costume, goes to sleep, it ain’t so easy Matty. Ain’t so easy.


End file.
